Seeking Kali
by The Inkline
Summary: Humankind always held itself on a tall pedestal. Some craved to be like them. As for myself, I wanted nothing more than to destroy them. --Envycentric. Yaoi. Drabbley?--
1. Chapter 1

-1Seeking Kali

Chapter One

The little body squirmed in its sleep, tiny, toothless mouth opening wide in what was either a yawn or a soundless cry before shutting again, the babe settled back down into whatever dream it was having. Though it was obvious the dream was spoiled, little gurgling whines and whimpers escaping the infant every now and again, as if he knew all too well what sort of creature was watching him at his most vulnerable.

It warmed the heart, really. If the kid was that perceptive, he might be able to survive to an old age.

I moved across the room, over to the gaudy crib and leaned against the rail to better study the little parasite, staring as if I could discern his dreams through watching alone. He just seemed to get more upset the closer I got, tiny little face scrunching up and whines getting more frequent, no doubt calling for his pathetic excuse for a mother.

Not that she could hear him, she had been taken into another room entirely, no doubt sitting pretty, dressed in ribbons and lace, staring into space like a perfect porcelain doll. Even when her baby started crying, tears running down that chubby little face, I knew she wouldn't move.

As for myself, I didn't much enjoy the sounds of shrieking wails, though it hardly sent me into sobbing conniptions like others I could mention. Rather than letting my eardrums burst, I reached down to lift the tiny thing from its bed, giving him a bounce.

That only seemed to freak him out even further, the screaming reaching almost impossible volumes. I knew he couldn't be tricked, so I didn't bother-- for some reason the infant could tell what did and didn't belong. Even if one wore his mother's face and crooned in her voice, he would know the difference and start thrashing like a hooked fish.

It was remarkable, really, what a baby could do in the pathetic state it was in. We meandered over to the window, I shifting my hold on the little creature to catch his attention with the world outside. That seemed to do the trick, the wails lessening a bit in the face of the wonderful Beyond, dark little eyes opening up and gazing out through the remnants of his tears, tolerating my presence so long as we stayed where we were.

I was just thankful to have the worm shut up, so I did what he wanted. It was something along the lines of the last supper before an execution, anyway. Soon his mother would be taken over, and God only knew he'd never get this kind of attention from the woman again.

Dante was never known to be the "motherly" type. Even without ever really remembering a time where she was a mother, I knew this all too well.

Memories were tricky, in that respect. At least, I knew mine were. I suppose the Bastard had unintentionally left the implicit knowledge when He tried to recreate my soul, and that was how I knew things about the woman we called "Master."

There was no other explanation for it. I hadn't lived that life, so there was no possible way for me to know anything of it, especially something as personal as _family_. My second hint came in the fact that every single memory I had involved Him in a way, either directly or distantly.

My dreams were riddled with them, the constant _plague_ of His memories masquerading as my own, watching from some distant angle as a small blonde boy was posed on a stool like a trophy between his dark-haired mother and his tall father, curls untamable no matter what the painter tried. I dreamt of the boy being teased about it, driven to rage at the man responsible, only making him laugh harder, making the little boy even angrier.

It was so _touching_, what a man remembered most about his firstborn son.

Because that's all that there was. Fights, arguments, hostility, hatred, manipulation, blackmail.

Disaster.

Of what was once my family, I only remembered what He did, nothing more and nothing less. And as a result, I gleaned more information than the little boy ever knew.

Blaming Him was easy enough, so I used the excuse often. Though, on the negative side, it tended to make you question what you thought you knew about the collection of almost random data so lovingly dubbed the SOUL. After all, if souls were dreams, hopes and memories, then what was to be said about the infant now drifting off to sleep in my arms?

He was far too young to really have experienced anything that would impact him to any great extent, his dreams no more than flashes of color and sound. The most he hoped for lay in the Id, the constant physical demands of the body, the need to eat, sleep and shit.

So did the little brat even have anything that could be considered a soul? Even further still, what did that make us?

I never voiced any of this. Four hundred years had taught me many things when it came to speaking of something so fragile and taboo, something some of the younger ones could use a little practice in. While highly intelligent and highly skilled, Dante was still a human being, a member of a wretched species that could not, and _would not_, accept certain ideas.

It was simple enough to learn: Homunculi were little more than fabricated dolls. They did not feel emotions, only pretended to. They did not have families, only creators.

They did not have souls.

I did my damnedest to keep a straight face whenever this came up in conversation, fighting not to laugh out loud as I watched the Master reprimand the youngers for letting their tongues wag in the wrong direction.

Even immortal as she, even with the years and years she lived, even with all the knowledge she gained, there were still things that made her cringe, still the little nagging doubts that she kept locked away in the dark where she might never have to face them as long as she lived.

She was still human, and it was hilarious. Even with how much she detested humankind, shunned and spoke ill of them, she was still just as eager to hide her face from the truth and keep the line between human and non-human intact.

For all her talk, she was still afraid that she and her kind were little more than self-important fucks.

I never said it, but I knew. I knew what they all knew, in the deepest parts of themselves, but never dared to speak of. We felt, from hatred to anger to spite to sorrow to the deepest of heartaches, we felt. And somewhere in these prisons we knew we carried a soul of our own.

What we didn't know was what the defining line between ourselves and humans exactly was. What was missing that we followed the Master to the ends of the earth, what was it that we were so desperately trying to reach?

We…?

They. Not we. I never cared, at least not for a very long time, about becoming one of the endless swarm of insects, but I knew many of my "comrades" spent their long, sleepless nights wondering that question over and over into the dark.

I scowled at the sleeping infant in my arms, fighting back the urge to just wrap my hand around his soft little skull and squeeze until his eyes popped out of their sockets and his brains ran out of his ears in a bloody mess.

He was barely a year old, he had done nothing for himself, only fed off of his mother for nine months and then continued to feed off of her after. He made others take care of him, unable to do it himself. He would do nothing, could do nothing, that would be of any use for the next decade and a half. Perhaps even longer.

He was nothing, absolutely nothing beyond a screaming, selfish bundle of fat and flesh, what was it that made HIM so special?! Why was it that this little shit-factory had the RIGHT to call himself a human being?!

The screaming started up the second I dropped him into his cradle and slammed the door shut, storming down the hall and far away from the noise, knocking into the brat's mother as I passed. I must have made quite the ruckus, if I had pulled her from her limbo, the dark girl running to find and soothe her one and only child, to come to the rescue and chase his every hurt and fear away. I felt my lip curl upward in disgust, before shrugging it off.

No matter. He wouldn't have her much longer.

The thought made me smile.


	2. Chapter 2

-1Chapter Two

The subject of a homunculus' supposedly nonexistent soul wasn't the only thing that we had to watch ourselves for. In following the Master, we were expected to follow her commandments.

Usually we simply did as told, without pushing to see just what the consequences were. I myself had only went against her once, years and decades and centuries ago, when I was still relatively young.

It never happened again, let me tell you. Very rarely was a mistake made twice in Dante's presence. The first Lust found that out the hard way, inadvertently reinforcing the notion that crossing the Master was a "bad, bad, BAD thing," as Gluttony so eloquently put it.

My own mistake, however, was a little more troublesome, considering what it resulted in. It was a good fifty odd years after I had been born and we had begun our move across the country to a fresh city. We would move around quite a bit, mostly whenever Dante would begin to get antsy, her stolen body beginning to age.

Wealth amassed over the years meant that she was assured of a very comfortable lifestyle, though I did find the occasional job in order to keep up appearances, pretending to be the ever-doting son taking care of his mother. I think she secretly loathed it, being considered old enough to be _anyone's_ mother, but she let it pass if only because it was a convenience.

Another convenience she tolerated were a slew of lovers and husbands. She never cared for a single one of them, of course, simply taking them if only to keep up appearances. How quickly the world was changing was another factor, and we needed a way to better keep up with it.

I suppose I should have realized my mistake the instant I met the Master's first beau, the man far too… well. Attentive to an aging lover that he thought the Master to be. It certainly had me suspicious, the way he'd come to the house with flowers-- and when he found all she did was stick them in a vase and let them rot, gifts-- for her, or how much he seemed to concentrate on her. It all rang of something false, but I didn't say a word.

After all, Dante didn't need a subhuman stepping into her affairs.

Compared to later lovers, she kept him for far longer. It was a good few years that we stayed where we were, despite the fact that the Master would be wanting for a new body very soon. Jakob became such a frequency that I hardly took note of when he came and went, simply playing my own part. The most I found myself doing was either retreating to what was designated as my own room or the garden whenever he arrived particularly late.

I mean, hell. She might not technically have been my mother in any sense of the word, but no one wanted to see THAT if they could help it. So I found myself in the back garden one evening, matches held to light the lanterns lining the path, sighing a bit and settling down on a bench. I had brought a few books with me, mostly to keep up the Master's research while she was "busy," but I didn't feel like really reading any of them that night.

Just when I was about to go back inside, I realized I wasn't alone. I mentally cursed myself for letting anything larger than a chipmunk get within a hundred feet of me without my notice, getting to my feet and turning to face my company.

It was Jakob standing there, the fucker, smiling away at the world and holding a pipe in one hand, the bowl giving off a faint glow as the tobacco burned, though he wasn't taking in any of it. My nose wrinkled at the combined stench of smoke and sweat and something hideous, moving to take up the research and get the hell inside, the night air spoiled. He just let me pass, still grinning like the stupid shit he was, turning to take over the bench I had just vacated.

It wouldn't be the last time he purposely sought me out once the Master was done with him, as a matter of fact, it seemed to happen more and more frequently, though I rarely stayed in his company for more than a moment.

Rather than deter him, it just seemed to make him all the more hell-bent, which should've been flattering, but only seemed that much more irritating. I suppose I should've thrown the man a bone of some kind if only to get him to leave me be. After all, considering the length of time he'd been going in and out of the house, it was only natural to try and get on the "son's" good side as well. He was trying to build up trust, I knew, and doing it rather well, if I didn't say so myself. He had already won over half the servants long ago, keeping up this God-awful cheerful attitude to anyone he wasn't capable of wooing to the bed.

Oh, did he woo, if how the maids blushed whenever they found out he was to be paying the Master a visit. Not that it was ever hard for him, because even I had to admit to how handsome he was, even if he did irritate the living CRAP out of me. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes straight out of my head at all the giggling, though the servants were careful to keep their mouths shut in mine and Dante's presence. As always, there were the occasional slip-ups, but luckily enough for the stupid girls, it always seemed to be me who overheard. I couldn't even imagine what would happen to the whole lot of them if it were the Master, the thought alone enough to make me grin ear to ear.

It was a dangerous game he was playing, and I was all too happy to sit back and watch him get burnt.

I finally found a bit of peace and quiet one day, knowing that the Master was out, leaving no reason for any visitors. Or at least, I thought there was no reason. I heard the servants before they even got close, a rather unwelcome talent at times, though their tone was different enough to warrant curiosity. Still pretending to read in my little space in the garden, I tilted my head to better catch what was being said.

"--calling on her, but you know--"

"Flowers, really. She's never even been around her own garden, he knows that--"

"Think they're really for her?"

The noise stopped the second they caught sight of me, a pair of black dresses hurrying along the stone path to where I was seated. I pretended the sound of their shoes on stone alerted me, and looked up, snapping the book shut at the same time.

"What is it," more of a statement than any question, frowning a bit when I spotted the younger of the two servant girls grinning away. She seemed to notice I was staring right at her, her expression blanking almost instantly. It was the older girl that spoke, though from the way her eyebrows knit, I knew the younger was going to catch hell for the little insubordination.

"Mister Senner is here, sir."

"And my mother is not. Tell him to go home."

"Well, sir, we did. But he said--"

"He said, 'Oh, well, that's fine then. Go and get Ein instead.'" The younger girl cowered at the look she was given by both myself and her superior, the taller girl certainly much more a danger to her than I was at the moment. I almost felt sorry for the impulsive creature, so I raised a hand and stood with a sigh.

"Fine, I'll go chase him off, seeing as you're incapable of doing it."

True to their word, the bastard himself was sitting in the parlor, the man grinning and rising to his feet once he spotted me. My stomach did a nasty flip at that, which I attributed to utter disgust, arms folded over my chest if only to make clear that I was hostile to whatever he wanted.

"She isn't here, you can leave now."

"So I've been told, but that's not why I'm here." He seemed completely unfazed with how I was acting, which either meant the man was very brave or incredibly stupid. Maybe a little bit of both.

"Then what do you want?"

"You sure cut to the chase, don't you? Alright, alright. How would you like dinner?"

"I can get dinner by walking downstairs." Again, he didn't even blink at the obvious rejection, only smiled more.

"I realize that, but I wanted to treat, and I can't very well do that in your own house. And considering you disappear any other time I'm around, it'd be a good bonding session or whatever the crap you want to call it."

Bonding session. The only bonding I wanted him to do at that moment was bond his head to the window via a heavy application of force. My lip curled a fraction more when I caught wind of whispers and giggles, head snapping in the maids' direction and shooting them a look that could kill. For a moment I thought it had actually worked, their faces draining of colour and their hearts skipping a beat in sheer terror when I made a motion as if to lunge at them. It was all I could do not to laugh as they ran off, mouth twisting to fight my grin and losing.

"Besides," I turned back to see Jakob staring at me with one dark eyebrow raised, "I think those poor girls need a break from you, if you do that as often as I think you do."


End file.
